Making my Crucifix with mod-rock

Earlier today three of us went out and purchased the mod-rock we needed as the school didn't have any so we needed to get our own. We quickly popped in to town to buy it during break.

Using the mod-rock was actually quite simple, we had to cut the rolls into small strips, and quickly put them in water so they were covered in it. This way the cement like stuff on it would spread out and also stick it to the sculpture like cement. I covered my crucifix in the mod-rock until it was a few layers thick so you couldn't see the wire sticking out from underneath. Simple task it may have been it was quite messy and it covered our hands in white cement like stuff which was quite hard to get off.

I then left it to dry, meanwhile i wanted to print out the pictures i took with the film camera on the weekend. I just followed the normal procedure of putting everything together in the black bag and putting the film on the reel, i then put the different solutions in the container with the film in it to develop it ready to print out the pictures.

once I had completed this task i noticed that only 2 of my pictures had actually come out which was extremely disappointed as all the other pictures i took were a complete waste of time. I was going to print out both my pictures but one of them was too overexposed so there was no point in printing it out as you could barely even see it. However next time I'll be much more careful with this as i know what i did wrong now and ill do it better, I'm glad i did my test shoot with a film camera as it would have been a complete disaster if these were my final shoots and only one of the pictures ended up being use able.

My crucifix had now dried so i began painting it. I decided to paint it a dark purple colour, not for any reason in particular. I first wanted to paint it silver but there was no silver paint so i had to choose from another range of colours. The purple was quite dark so i thought it would be okay and wouldn't look too peculiar.

I think the end result of it turned out to be okay there were a few dents in it where the mod-rock had sunk into the metal mould. It wasn't completely even all over however i think it was quite good, it was quite a difficult and long procedure all together and took quite a long time.

Developing My ideas.

I started today off by printing out my test shoots and sticking them into my sketch book and then annotating them. After i had completed this task I started to decide what i was going to mount my pictures on and what i would make.

At first i was thinking of things which would be relevant to my photos and my ideas of witchcraft, ghosts and fear/evil.

So i first thought of making a wigi board however to make a proper wigi board and for it to actually look good would consume way too much time and would be far too complicated. Also i wouldn't have any room to put my pictures on as it would cover up the board itself, so i decided against this idea.

My second idea was to create a book of shadows, which is basically a spell book that witches are said to use. This would be quite simple all i would need is a big leather book and i could decorate the cover to look relevant to the subject of my project. What i was planning on doing was to take loads of pictures and put them inside the book with spells and charms written underneath, although i wasn't completely happy with this so i thought of what else i could do.

The third thing i considered was to design my own Wicca altar, which i would make with a wooden box or small table and hang the pictures off around it if it was a table like curtains, or if it was a box on top of it and inside it. However i needed other things for this such as a pentacle, an athame (basically a double bladed knife), a cauldron and a wand, typical things you would have at a Wicca altar. So this became too complicated as there was no possibility of me getting a hold of all these objects and a box or table with pictures hanging of it was simply too boring for my liking.

So i decided to think of less complicated things which we're easier to make and didn't involve me having to buy/find any peculiar objects.

The first idea which came to mind was to simply make a pentacle/pentagram with some wire and then mod rock later and then hang the pictures off it. I thought this idea would be suitable as its a symbol of witchcraft and magic.

However a better idea came to light which was to make a cross out of wire and then put the pictures on it. I thought this would be quite a contrast to the pictures which represent dark and black magic. A few centuries ago when Christians believed there to be witches or witchcraft present in the area they went on a witch-hunt to find them and kill them as they were considered to be evil and devil worshippers. So i thought it would be quite thought provoking if the person looking at my project just saw a cross with pictures of a witch or witchcraft in it. However I thought it would work well because its almost as if they're opposite, as they were enemies. So a cross would be a good thing to mount my pictures on.
By the end of the day i had began designing my cross out of wire, which was quite a simple task which i would have imagined to be quite complicated. I have now made the mould of my cross and next week ill put some mod rock on it to make it more textured and a nicer shape obviously. After that I will paint it and put my pictures on it once i have taken them.
I also decided that I would take some more test shoot photos to have some more practice and be more precise on what exactly i want to photograph. This time however I've decided to use a film camera to have more practice using so therefore my final pictures will turn out better.

Test shoots.

Here are a few of the pictures i took for the test shoot of my main three ideas, which are magic, fear and ghosts. Although this is only the test shoot so the actual pictures will obviously be better than these as they will have a lot more effort put intoI'd say this picture represents magic and fear. The light of the candle could be associated with magic and the way she is looking into the light. The smudged black makeup also adds to the effect of the photo. Its quite a dark picture, which would make it seem more related to fear.

I think this picture represents magic, the circle of candles is something which is typically known to be magic-like. Also the stripey socks are also considered to be witchy.
Tarot is definitely associated with magic, it could also be with fear. Because tarot cards have been perceived as evil many times in the years they've been around. The candles again add to the effect especially because of the way they are positioned, in a circle.

This picture was meant to look like the girl in the picture was a ghost, so we dressed her up in this specific outfit for it to stand out in the dark room. However it doesn't look too ghostly, you cant see her feet though so she could be hovering above the ground and her face is quite distorted too.

Choosing our main three ideas.

Most of today's time was spent finishing all the work that needed to be done for our sketch books and making sure all loose ends were tied up, and every bit of work was up to date. So i completed my research report, printed it out, and put it in my sketch book. Put my test shots in and annotated them. Annotated the pictures we took the other week with the film cameras.

When i finished all this work i focused on choosing my main three ideas which i would use for my project. I decided on Fear, Magic, and Ghosts. I chose these three because i think i can make something really good out of them and i think they go well together. Well it does depend on how the person would perceive these three things and how they would explain, and annotate them.

Here's an example of a picture which describes fear.

I actually find this picture quite scary and disturbing myself. A lot of people are scared of going down stairs into a dark basement scared of some mysterious monster. That's why this picture works so well because things like this play on people's minds and it describes fear quite well. I wouldn't exactly be using fear in this particular way in my project but i think this picture definitely has an element of fear to it.

Here is a picture which describes magic

Although this picture does not describe magic in the best way. I wasn't actually thinking of magic in a way like fairies and happy magic. I was thinking of the More dark and sinister side of magic. This picture isn't particularly dark and sinister but tarot cards can be quite sinister and evil. I have quite a few good ideas of what I'm going to do for my project and how I'm going to define magic with the pictures i take.

Here is a picture which describes ghosts.

This picture is actually meant to be a picture of a real ghost, whether it is or not i don't know. But the white see through ghostly figure is quite convincing. i think the photo is taken very well as well on the stairs, quite a dark photo with a bright light white figure standing in the middle.

I would portray ghosts quite differently in my project, not so much like this picture. But still use the same idea of a dark photo with a white ghostly figure in it.

I'm going to mix all these ideas together to make one big idea, and take pictures which have all these things in them.

Hi Arianne

Nice blogging and good to have included some pictures - why did you not feel that they were successful? Try to comment upon what worked and what didn`t and why..

Week 2

We finished off our research reports this morning and also wrote our dark room diaries, which is basically annotating the pictures in our sketch books and explaining how I took the pictures, what it involved, how I think they turned out and what I could do better next time to make sure they turn out better. Also including reasons of why each picture was taken and what I was thinking at the time. After Lunch we got told what the brief was and exactly what we had to produce during this unit.

The brief is to produce a piece of work which includes dark room photography, it should also be 3D installation art, and not much restrictions of size of the object either or the amount of the photos put on it. Also it needs to interpret the word 'Believe' or something that you as an individual are inspired in. It should also be 'thought provoking' for others and it doesn't have to necessarily be understood by others.

A few ideas that i thought of included: Magic, fear, fear of the unknown, illusions, fantasy, what people believe in, what you as an individual consider to be magic, and whether you consider it to be truth or lies, deception, disguise, dreams, ghosts, delusion, premonitions etc.

The main ideas I'm going to be focusing on however are Magic, Fear of the unknown, what people believe in and what they consider to be magic, how magic is disguised and if it is deceiving.

I also went out onto Parkus piece to take a few pictures which would sort of fall into the category of these ideas, however Parkus piece is not the best place to be taking pictures like this and was not very successful. Here are a few of the pictures.

First day of Artefact unit

Today was the first day of the artifact unit, second week of cram. However last week all of us we're based at coleridge to finish off everything we were doing in the previous unit and talked to Mr.Durran and Mr.hind about our progress and how well we were doing and what our targets should be for the next unit. We all also began our research report for the unit we were in.
We had a very eventful day today and i learned so much for one day. First off we got into pairs and went out to take pictures. we got given a camera to share between a pair and had to finish most of a film off. It was quite difficult at first as we had to make sure everything was perfect, like the shutter speed, the focus, and just whether the light was green or not. to make sure the pictures came out decent enough to use.
After break we returned to the photography room with all our pictures taken. This part was one of the most difficult parts. We had to remove the film from the camera and take it out of its case and put it onto the reel perfectly inside a black light proof bag, without being able to see. As this was my first time ever doing something like this i found it quite challenging at first, but Zaigham and i took it in turns to do and we managed it fine in the end. After we put the film on the reel we had to put it in a light proof cup with its lid on, which was like a funnel, still all inside the bag not being able to see. Once the cup was closed and away from any light, we put the developer in for several minutes for the film to develop, and then quickly rinsing with water afterwards to finally put the fix on for another 4-5 minutes. After this was finished we dried our films. This part of the day was quite difficult and was really complicated at first, as we had to learn so many new things at once and were just bundled with a bunch of information but it was actually a lot easier than i expected it to be and actually quite fun.
After lunch we developed our pictures in the dark room, which was by now the hardest part. The first few times i printed the pictures they didn't turn out right, or went black because they were overexposed, however after doing it a few times it became a lot simpler and sort of just came naturally. I didn't need to time how long the pictures were in each solution after a while either, i knew when they were ready and needed to go in the next one. by the end of the day i had printed out several pictures, however most of them were actually of me, as the ones i took were slightly out of focus but i still learned how to print out and develop the pictures which i thought was the most important part of this day. Next time we do something like this I'll be much more efficient at doing it and know what I'm doing and wont need as much assistance.